The Girl with No Name Ch. 04

The apprentice assumed she knew the outcome of Danka's punishment. When the spectators started attacking her, it was likely a Priest intervened and ordered her taken down. Since the girl was dishonored beyond redemption in her hometown, the Clergy member issued the penance collar so she could get away and make a new life somewhere else. That would explain why she had no theological knowledge. The apprentice thought it was extremely irresponsible to send a penitent away with no instruction, but she could understand the Priest's reasoning; the dishonored girl had to leave as quickly as possible. The apprentice was right about everything concerning Danka except for one important detail. She did not receive the collar from a Clergy member: she received it from the very man who had her arrested.

Danka's crying made the apprentice assume that whatever happened to her on the pillory must have been traumatic and that no further questions were necessary. The peasant girl was very fortunate that the apprentice did not bother to ask who issued the collar.

The apprentice waited for the penitent's crying to subside before moving on to another topic.

"I don't see how we can address your ignorance if you can't read. Do you at least know the letters?"

"Yes, Apprentice."

"You know how to read and write letters?"

"A little, Apprentice."

"Very well, let's see what 'a little' means to you."

The apprentice brought a wooden tray full of fine sand and a stylus that Danubian children used to learn the alphabet. Paper was too expensive to waste on simple learning and writing practice, so typically a student used the stylus like a pen to draw letters in the sand.

"Draw me the letter 'A'."

Danka easily drew the letter.

"Now draw the next five letters in the alphabet..."

Danka complied. The apprentice smoothed the sand and told her ward to write more letters.

"If you know any words, I want you to write them out for me."

Danka wrote the word "A-P-P-L-E".

"How appropriate. That's your first word. Not a bad start. So, you've been practicing?"

"Yes, Apprentice."

"Now. I will have you write some letters to make some words. I want you to sound them out and see if you can figure out what they are."

The apprentice patiently spelled out several words letter by letter, giving the student time to draw them. The words were simple; such as "cat", "sun", "bird", and "nut". Danka struggled with sounding them out, but eventually pronounced all of the words correctly.

Early the next morning, the apprentice took Danka to the old temple and addressed the Senior Priest. Danka was still terrified that he would figure out her secret, but now she had the apprentice on her side.

The two women knelt in the appropriate position, with their legs spread, their backs arched, their hands extended in front, heads to the ground, and bottoms spread and completely exposed. When the Senior Priest gave them permission to kneel upright, the apprentice requested that both she and the penitent have the day off for writing lessons. The response was that the two women could have the mornings to work on the lessons and Danka would be tested at the end of each week to check her progress. So, that was it: Danka now was committed to learning how to read and write.

The apprentice spent the rest of the morning having Danka practice the sounds associated with each letter and writing simple words. They only stopped when the cathedral bell announced it was mid-day. The lessons became part of the daily routine of Danka and her mentor. She worked hard and learned quickly, earning the respect of her tutor. The apprentice noted:

"You may be ignorant, but you're definitely not stupid. That may sound like an insult, but it's not. I'd rather be ignorant and smart than educated and stupid. I have seen plenty of stupid people with education and I can attest such people are tools of the Destroyer."

By the end of her first week she had completely mastered the alphabet and could spell and write one-syllable words. Learning, like her exploration of new places, became an adventure for the young peasant. Just like her trip to a new province, the world of letters and written words opened up an entirely new part of Danka's brain, forcing her to think in ways that had never occurred to her when she was still with her family. She was changing and realizing facts about the real world, the most important of which was now knowing that buying a new dress would have made no difference whatsoever in finding an upper-class husband. Upper class women had different skills and knew a bunch of things that Danka had yet to master, only one of which was reading.

After cleaning up from lunch, the five naked penitents settled down for their midday nap. Danka waited for the others to fall asleep so she could finally see what was in that folded cloth sitting in her bucket. When she opened it, there was a piece of parchment with a note and...a silver coin. Danka had never touched a silver coin, let alone have one in her possession. By the standards of her family's neighborhood, it was a huge amount of money. Now she truly understood how much Farmer Orsktackt wanted to make amends for what had happened to her. She could not understand the note, but it was written in block letters instead of cursive script to allow her to interpret it as quickly as possible. Now she had a specific assignment in reading, something she'd have to master and practice to understand. She practiced tracing the letters in her writing tray until she had the pattern memorized. Then she'd sound out each letter and try to interpret the words. On the first day she figured out C-O-I-N, T-H-I-S, and Y-O-U. The others were beyond her grasp at the moment, but now she was able to sound-out, read, and write three new words.

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Danka was the constant companion of the apprentice for the rest of the month. In the mornings she labored with her efforts to learn how to read, sounding out and writing longer and ever-more complicated words. The apprentice was impressed with her ward's progress, and also by her determination. Yes, the peasant had arrived as ignorant as a rock, but she was determined to overcome her deficient upbringing.

The apprentice liked having Danka with her. She continued to talk to her in a condescending manner and always looked at her as a social inferior, but still she enjoyed Danka's company. She could talk freely and test how to express Church doctrine in a way that an ignorant person could understand it. She practiced singing hymns with her ward and in exchange learned several bawdy peasant camp-fire songs. The girl's very roughness fascinated the fastidious apprentice and opened her understanding of a social group she had only seen from a distance.

During the afternoons Danka accompanied the apprentice on her rounds about the town. She especially enjoyed going to the market and haggling with the vendors over the price of food. The apprentice, coming from a wealthy family, was not worried about saving the Church money during her purchases, an attitude which mystified the peasant girl. Danka instinctually contested every purchase and astonished her mentor by forcing the vendors to cut their prices in half.

The apprentice read passages of both the Bible and the Book of the Ancients and explained to Danka the difference between the two books. She explained that there were two competing factions trying to assume control of the Danubian Church. The faction that controlled Danka's hometown of Rika Héckt-nemát and Rika Chorna was called the "True Believers", while the faction controlling Starívktaki Móskt and the main Temple in the capitol called themselves the "Old Believers". The "True Believers" mostly followed Christian beliefs, including the idea that the Lord-Creator existed in the form of a man and had a son called Jesus, and that Jesus, or the "Son of Man", was the person to whom most prayers should be directed.

The Old Believers countered that the idea that the Creator could have a human form and also have a son, who was executed by human soldiers of all things, was ludicrous. The Old Believers took most of their philosophy from the pre-Christian Book of the Ancients. They drew some ideas from the Bible, mostly from Ecclesiastes, Psalms, and Isaiah, but their main focus was the Bible's predecessor, the book that outlined the more ancient beliefs of the country.

The apprentice was very clear where she stood in the conflict. "We are not part of Rome. Therefore, it makes no sense that we should accept the Roman Lord and pray to his executed son. It just makes no sense."

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Danka spent the rest of her time working with the other Penitents. She did not particularly enjoy being with them because their only conversations focused on chores. Protocol determined that a Penitent could not talk about herself or her life. Danka already knew penitents kept quiet around Clergy members, but she was surprised that the penitents also kept quiet around each other. Weeks went by and she knew no more about her companions than she did when she first met them. At first the silence was hard on Danka; to live with people she really could not converse with. Later she realized how much the silence worked to her advantage, because after the initial scare she had with the Senior Priest, no one questioned her motives or her right to live under the protection of the Church. Whatever her faults, she was accepted as a full member of the household.

Three times a week all of the women associated with the Temple gathered in the Cathedral to sing. Priestesses, seminary students, and penitents combined their voices in religious hymns and "formal" music. The majority of the songs were unaccompanied by instruments, but each woman's voice had a unique role in the songs. From the first day, the music director expected Danka to fully participate and learn where she needed to add her voice to each composition.

Danka felt more at peace with herself during the singing than at any other time of the day. She was part of something much bigger: just one voice among many, and yet with a unique role. She applied herself during the songs, determined to add her part to the women's collective effort. The music itself, sad, beautiful, and peaceful, calmed her nerves and helped her to push aside the trauma of her exile and the stress she was under trying to become literate. She felt enchanted with the Creator's peace during the practices and was always disappointed when they ended.

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For several days after arriving, Danka wondered if there were any male seminary students or male penitents working for the Temple in Starívktaki Móskt. At the end of the second week a group of dirty naked young men returned to the Temple with a wagon train loaded with supplies. There were over 20 men altogether. The majority were wearing penance collars, but eight were not. The eight un-collared men knelt before the Senior Priest and waited for him to look over several purchase documents related to the group's outing. Danka noticed the eight female seminary students waiting anxiously with bouquets of flowers, including her mentor. As soon as the men were dismissed, each paired up with one of the women. Following protocol, the women gave the flowers to the men and the men gave a basket of fruit to the women. They left to eat together and chat about the trip.

Danka later learned that Danubian Priests and Priestesses, especially among the "Old Believers", were expected to marry upon graduating from the seminary and before taking vows. That was why there was always the same number of male and female trainees attending a seminary at any time, because an unmarried person could not join the Clergy. Courting a marriage partner during seminary studies was as important as pursuing theological topics, given that Priests and Priestesses spent their lives working in pairs and were expected to have a close and flawless relationship.

The two older female penitents led the men to a Temple storage annex to offload the supplies. Unlike the seminary students, there was no relationship at all between any of the male and female penitents. Most of the men did not even live on Temple property, but instead were staying with family members. Their life circumstances were different from the women as well; most expected to wear their collars no more than a year or so and then resume normal lives. The women lived with the Clergy because their situation was much more long-term and their families had rejected them.

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After two months of struggling with the strange world of letters and words, Danka was more-or-less literate. She had so pleased the apprentice that the trainee approached the Temple Senior Priest and asked to be given several pieces of parchment and an ink-well. Now Danka could practice writing on real paper with a real quill, instead of scratching letters in sand. Over the next several days the peasant filled every spot on the sheets with letters, words, and sentences. The apprentice triumphantly returned to the Clergy with the papers, showing them that she had managed to teach an illiterate adult how to read and write.

Now...finally...Danka could decipher Farmer Orsktackt's letter. Laboriously spelling and sounding out each word, she read the following:

If you are reading these words, then you will understand I was correct about you and that it is your Path in Life to be much more than the peasant I saw in my orchard. I do not know what your Path in Life will be, but I am confident it is not to dig wells and steal apples. The Lord-Creator has much more planned for you.

I am giving you a silver coin. I ask that you keep it with you and not spend it unless your life depends on it. The purpose of that coin is to keep you alive, should the need arise. This way, no matter what your struggles, you will never be completely destitute, you will always have what you need for an emergency. Just remember, once the coin is spent, it is spent.

You will discover that life is like your coin. Once you spend your precious time on something, that time is spent and you will never have it again. Remember to appreciate every moment and every opportunity the Lord-Creator has granted you.

I wish you safe passage and happiness. I did what I could to give you the chance to escape. The rest is up to you.

Tuko Orsktackt - Rika Héckt-nemát Farmer's Guild

Danka folded the letter and picked up the coin. She spent a long time staring at it, memorizing every detail. She had wondered what to spend it on. In spite of the apprentice's skepticism about her plan to buy a dress, she had thought about using it for that purpose. However, there would be no dress purchase, because Danka now realized she was obligated to keep the coin with her. Its purpose was to save her life and it could not be spent on anything more trivial.

Danka was so immersed in her day-to-day activities that she failed to notice the passing of the summer. She did not keep track of dates, but had she been working outside she would have noticed the changes among the plants and animals signaling that autumn was fast approaching and the unpleasant dark days of winter were only weeks away. She didn't think about any of that: she was too immersed in her literacy and theological studies to notice anything going on immediately outside the Temple. At the end of August, her seminary mentor assigned her first full-length book: a theological training manual for children about to become teenagers. The assignment signaled that by the end of the summer Danka was reading at the level of a 12-year old.

On the first day of September hundreds of nervous-looking children and their parents gathered in the town plaza, while the seminary women, the penitents, and several Priestesses stood on the Temple steps singing Church hymns. The ceremony was for the annual Departure from Childhood, a ritual that, during the 1700's, was held once each year in most of the provincial towns. Traditional Danubian society considered a person as a child until the age of 12 and an adolescent over the next three years. Adolescence was the most difficult period of a Danubian's life, because young teenagers no longer could live the care-free existence of a child, but did not yet have any of the rights of an adult. The girls would not braid their hair, nor the boys shave their heads, for another three years. However, they were about to experience the difficult reality of assuming adult responsibilities.

The 12-year-olds were wearing black prayer robes and each was carrying a toy. Each was accompanied by a much younger child, either a sibling or a cousin. The 12-year-olds and their companions assembled at the steps of the Temple, while the other family members knelt in the Temple plaza.

The Senior Priest and his wife stood on the steps, waited for the choir to finish their last song, and addressed the public. His speech was the one he gave every year about the Creator's Path in Life and personal transition. He began with one of the few passages from the Christian Bible's New Testament that was still quoted among the "Old Believers":

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."

The Priest paused for several moments as the assembled children fidgeted nervously. Finally he continued:

"The time has come for you to put away your childish things. It is your Path in Life. Whatever joys you had as a child have passed. Your Path in Life now will be totally different. The Creator commands that you put away all childish things."

The older children responded by handing off their toys to the younger ones. The younger children scampered back to their families, each happy to have something that had been treasured by their older sibling. The custom stipulated that the item given away had to be the adolescent's favorite toy or childhood item, the loss of which officially marked the end of the first phase of the Path in Life.

The choir sang another hymn before the Senior Priest continued. There was a lengthy prayer to the Creator, asking for guidance for this year's group of adolescents, along with the hope their lives will be charitable - that the presentation of the toy will be only the first selfless act out of many throughout their lives.

Danka recalled with bitterness the year she turned 12. She had to give up her only doll to her sister, who passed it to a friend who immediately lost it. That was the day she learned that her Path in Life was indeed to serve. She would give and Katrínckta would take. The Lord-Creator had determined that she would give charity, but not expect any in return. As a result, Danka's bitterness against both her family and the Lord-Creator festered over the following three years. If that is my Path in Life, then I will find a different Path in Life. I have no reason to accept the Lord-Creator's plans for me. I hate the Lord-Creator and I'll say that to his face if he ever has the courage to confront me. If I have to suffer the Hell-Fire for it, then I'll just deal with it when the time comes.

Now she was watching other adolescents forced to surrender their childhood. She felt sorry for them, because her own life after turning 12 had been nothing but hardship and misery. She wondered how many of those girls standing in black robes would be stuck in equally grim Paths in Life.

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The passing of September 1 reminded Danka that the summer had ended and that the weather would be changing within a few weeks. Already she noticed the days rapidly shortening and the nights becoming less and less comfortable for being outside with no clothing. When she arrived in Starívktaki Móskt her intention had been to stay just a few days, but the lure of living in a comfortable place and learning how to read encouraged her to postpone her departure.